Bengals suspend Henry pending trial

Posted: Saturday, June 14, 2008

CINCINNATI - Former Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chris Henry has been suspended indefinitely by the NFL.

The Bengals released Henry on April 3 after he was arrested for the fifth time. Henry is scheduled for trial June 24 in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court on charges of assault and criminal damaging. A man accused Henry of punching him in the face and breaking his car window with a beer bottle.

Henry had received permission from the judge to try out with other NFL teams, but the suspension puts an end to that.

If Henry is acquitted, the suspension could be lifted, Henry's agent Marvin Frazier said. If Henry is convicted, he faces at least a one-season suspension under the league's conduct policy. Henry was suspended for the first eight games last season for violating the policy, his second suspension from the league during his three-year career.

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello confirmed the indefinite suspension Friday.

Henry has been arrested five times since the Bengals made him a third-round draft pick out of West Virginia in 2005. His misconduct was one of the factors that prompted Goodell to tighten the league's policies last year and strengthen its punishment for players who get in trouble with the law.

Henry is the second former Bengal player trying to get back into the NFL with another team following a series of suspensions. Linebacker Odell Thurman, a second-round pick in 2005, was suspended earlier this month for the 2008 season after violating the league's substance abuse policy again.

Thurman sat out the last two seasons after skipping a drug test and getting arrested for drunken driving. He was reinstated by the league in April, but the Bengals released him last month after he skipped a series of voluntary workouts. Then, he was suspended again by the league.

Sportscaster Charlie Jones, 77, dies of heart attack

SAN DIEGO (AP) - Charlie Jones, the deep-voiced sportscaster whose career as a play-by-play announcer dated to the beginning of the American Football League in 1960, has died. He was 77.

Jones died of a heart attack Thursday at his home in the La Jolla district of San Diego, his longtime agent, Martin Mandel, told The Associated Press.

"Charlie is one of the legends of sports broadcasting starting with covering the first Super Bowl," Mandel said. "He had a wonderful kettledrum voice. He was known for that and his versatility."

NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol called Jones "one of the great pioneers of NBC Sports. His work in particular on the NFL, golf and the Olympics left a lasting legacy."

Jones worked for ABC and NBC in a career spanning 38 years.

He started at ABC in 1960, the year the American Football League made its debut. He moved to NBC in 1965, remainining with that network until 1997.

Jones announced 28 different sports, while with NBC, from golf to tennis, baseball to figure skating. He called events at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

He is survived by wife Ann Jones, two children and three grandchildren.